I’m so excited about the potential news of an Apple tablet on Wednesday that I can’t help myself. My father and I have been sending each other articles with the latest rumours for the past week or two. Today we traded our predictions for what Apple will announce on Wednesday and I thought I’d share mine with you, dear readers.

This is all pure speculation. I don’t know anything that everyone else reading the rumours doesn’t know. I have not been contacted by Apple and asked to port Monkeys in Space to the tablet. This is just my guess. [end disclaimer]

With that said, here’s my prediction for what the tablet might be:

Name: I think it will be something no one’s guessing… I think it will be 2 syllables (see: iPod, MacBook, iMac, iPhone), so I think that rules out iTablet. But I don’t think it will be iPad because it’s too cute and clever, and Apple doesn’t work like that; and I don’t think it will be iSlate because of Microsoft using the word so much at CES. So my guess is that it’ll be something no one’s placing money on.
Cost: $899 in the US (which means about $1200 in Canada…zing!)
Screen: 10″ touch screen. A lot of sites are guessing two models: 7″ and 11″, but I think 11″ is too big and 7″ is too small for what this will be, and I think they’ll start with one configuration and expand to other models if they sell enough.
Battery life: 6 hours no WiFi, 3 hrs with WiFi
Agreements: Major newspaper subscriptions, new online bookstore through iTunes, since Amazon won’t want to distract from the Kindle, and B&N won’t want to distract from the Nook.
Stylus: No. I think a lot of people would like to see it, but I think they’ll concentrate on multi-touch with fingers and design the UI around that. Designing the UI for use with both a stylus and fingers would be incredibly difficult.
Other Interaction: There are some rumours that the back of the device might be multi-touch sensitive (so that you could move your fingers on the back while holding it), which would be amazing, if true. I don’t think it will be, though I hold out hope.
Camera: Front-facing so that you can do video chat with it on the go.
Software to show it off: Games. A lot of gaming sites have been invited to the press event, who have never been invited to Apple events before. All of them take this to mean that games and multimedia are going to be the primary “wow factor” that shows this thing off. I think the emphasis will be on this device being for fun above all else. I think that’s the only way to sell it: by differentiating it from a laptop and an iPhone at the same time.
Connectivity: Wifi for sure. I think it may also have 3G connectivity (like the Kindle) so that it can always be connected, though I don’t think it will be used like a cell phone…just for downloading email, etc. If they make it connected, I really hope that the wireless plan is either optional, or can be rolled into an existing iPhone plan somehow (tethering?). I don’t want to pay for 2 wireless data plans a month. If it releases with 3G connectivity, I worry about its availability outside the US at launch. I’m hoping we don’t see another long wait for Canada to get it.

So there you have it: my prediction. On Wednesday you may berate me for my stupidity, or you may book me on your television program as an “analyst” for future predictions relating to Apple technology.

Regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, if Apple does announce a tablet on Wednesday, I think Apple could once again change the way we think about personal computing. A truly portable computer with an intuitive touch interface and Apple’s ability to design beautiful form-factor could be revolutionary. I guess we’ll see…

Feel free to dispute/discuss or post your own predictions in the comments.

Owen

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Misc, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.